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| The Time Tunnel |
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| With | James Darren, Robert Colbert, Lee Meriwether, Whit Bissel, John Zaremba |
| Producer: Irwin Allen |
| Director: Allen |
| Writer: Harold Jack Bloom |
60 Mins., Fri. 8 p.m.
GENERAL MILLS
ABC-TV from H’wood (color) | |
| | (Dancer-Fitzgerald-Sample)
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ABC has given “Time Tunnel” the onerous task of trying to bridge three proved rating busters on the other webs, and if the show is shot down by the tested competition it will not be for want of trying. If “Tunnel” were just a routine sci-fi meller, it might just as well have crept into its time device and projected itself into an easier slot. As it is, this elaborately wrought and well-scripted (albeit trickily) show should give a good account of itself.
Scripter Irwin Allen’s story line is a shrewd bit of penning. Although the titled time device may shoot James Darren and Robert Colbert into the past and future, the script keeps a solid foot on home base by allowing for a strong subplot back at the time machine. Thus the story can play back and forth, connecting the home base scientists (and the viewers) in contact with reality while the pair are out getting involved with past history or future events.
Preemer had intense young scientist James Darren plunging into the machine before it had been fully tested in order to prove that it will work to a doubting U.S. Senator who holds the purse strings on the project. Darren ends up on the H.M.S. Titanic a few days before it is historically scheduled to sink. He attempts to get the captain to change the ship’s course and is thrown into the brig. Robert Colbert observes all this back at the machine and jumps in to join Darren. They both try to save the ship, but fail of course.
Initialer ended with the home base scientists pulling the pair off the foundering ship, but still unable to bring them back. They’ll be floating in time until the next episode.
“Tunnel” is more dependent upon plot device than it is character, but Darren holds his own as the firebrand good scientist and Colbert is good as the more mature scientist. The sets and effects on this show were outstanding. |
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Source
Unknown
(“Variety”?)
Date
unknown
(Sept. 1966?) |  |  | |
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